


The Chemistry of Cooking

by sciencebutch



Series: Tumblr Prompts [6]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner-centric, Character Study, Cooking, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 23:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17375102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/pseuds/sciencebutch
Summary: Bruce can cook, he just doesn't.





	The Chemistry of Cooking

**Author's Note:**

> this was for bruceweek 2018. prompt was "cooking"

Cooking is a  _science_. It has rules, laws that every chef worth his salt knows:

Don’t undercook chicken. Only use baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) if you want a faster, less gradual, chemical leavening process, otherwise, use baking powder. Cilantro makes everything taste better.  _Always_ season your food.

It’s simple, really, all one needs to do is think of the science behind it, the reactions. There are ratios that need to be kept, balances that need to be preserved. 

Bruce won’t admit to being a genius at cooking, but he does think he’s pretty damn good at it. He would measure every ingredient out meticulously; bend down so he was eye level with the meniscus of the amount of milk he required, make sure he had the exact quantities.

 He still remembers the recipe to the chicken and lemon soup his mother would make, still remembers the card stained with melted chocolate and who knows what else with the measurements written down, scrawled in his mom’s expressive curlicue handwriting. He makes it, sometimes, when he’s desperately in need of comfort; when the memories come and won’t leave. 

That was all before the Incident, however. Now he’s become a little less strict in his methods, eating whatever food is put in front of him. Whatever horrendous combinations he can make, he consumes. And he still does it, even though he’s at the tower now and doesn’t have to. He puts cream cheese on a tortilla with raspberry jelly and lettuce that is starting to brown and calls it breakfast, mixes bruised bananas and deli meat in a bowl and snacks on it while he’s in the lab. Hell, sometimes he doesn’t even bother cooking eggs or chicken all the way through, it’s not like he can get salmonella. Bruce gives up on perfecting the nuances that food preparation contains, even though the inaccuracy feels like a punch to the gut, something  _crooked_  and wrong.

He can still cook, and still does, just not for himself. He’s not used to good food anymore, he’s not in the habit of carefully and patiently waiting for vegetables to saute or for the yeast in the bread dough to metabolize glucose and make it rise. He’s been engrained in a lifestyle of desperation and haste, where dumpsters held dinner and bugs were nothing but a good source of protein.

Bruce used to cook - used to do a lot of things - but not anymore. 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr!


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